Pete McMartin, Vancouver Sun

Published: Saturday, August 02, 2008

Home for Ed Chase is a patch of grass near the corner of 96th Avenue and 160th Street in Surrey.

He and his dog, Daryl, who is old and whose hind end is paralyzed, sleep there and spend their days there out in the open, or under a big, gaudy beach umbrella when it rains. It is a busy intersection, cornered by a high school, a Chevron station, a Husky station, and the Parkland Fellowship church, which owns the patch of grass Ed has homesteaded.

Ed and his dog, and the wagon Ed pulls Daryl around in, and Ed’s tarp, and Ed’s few belongings, are all visible to the passing traffic.

In both a physical and moral sense, Ed’s patch of grass has become a battleground. At the centre of that battle is Ed. On either side of him are arrayed two opposing sides: those who do not mind his presence and want to help him, and those who want him gone. Here, compassion clashes against the need for civic order, which is a fight played out a thousand times a day over the homeless.

But this isn’t the Downtown Eastside with its hordes of street people; this is a middle-class neighbourhood in the farthest reaches of Surrey, and Ed is an anomaly here. He stands out in stark relief to the suburban landscape, and his presence, and the polarizing effects it has had on the neighbourhood, are being played out with all the elements of some New Testament parable.

Ed is 47. He was born in Saskatchewan. He’s drifted around – Toronto, the Yukon, the Prairies – and he first came to B.C. when he was 19. He’s worked in construction and odd jobs.

“I’m a lifetime loser,” Ed said. “A jack of all trades and a master of none.”

He fell into homelessness five years ago. He told a disconnected story about being evicted for late rent, and then losing his van to ICBC, and then, more recently, having his car towed away. He slept in nearby Tynehead Park for 2 1/2 years, and when his gear was confiscated, he slept on picnic tables.

The authorities asked him if he wanted to go into a shelter.

“They wanted to put me in a shelter but I don’t want to live with anyone else. And I had my dogs.”

(He had two dogs at the time, Daryl and Ray. More about Ray in a moment.)

When he was rousted again, one of the neighbours in the area approached Brian Stewart, the pastor at Parkland Fellowship, and asked if Ed could park his car in the church’s parking lot. Stewart said yes, and Ed started sleeping in his car on the church property last November. The church, Stewart said, offered to help Ed find a place and even help him financially. But again, Ed, like many homeless, was resistant to that. In May, the police and bylaw people visited the church and told Stewart Ed’s sleeping in the car was illegal. At the same time, Stewart said, the church had concerns about Ed and his dog’s presence in the parking lot because of his proximity to the church’s daycare. Ed moved his gear out to the church’s boulevard.

The church, however, did not force Ed to leave the property entirely. They were Christian. They were not about to turn their backs on the social leper.

“As a church,” Stewart said, “we want to be redemptive in this community.”

For the first few weeks, Ed’s presence on the boulevard was uneventful. But he wore out his welcome at both gas stations, which have now banned him from their properties. In the meantime, Ed said, the city and police conducted what he considered a campaign of harassment against him, repeatedly confiscating his tents and belongings.

It reached a crisis point on June 28. Ed got into a fight with a customer at the Chevron station. Ed – who is convinced the provincial government has exacerbated the homeless situation with its policies – was holding up an anti-government sign in a one-man demonstration, something he does often. Words were exchanged. In Ed’s telling of the story, the customer grabbed him and started punching him. A second man tried to break up the scuffle, only to be punched in the mouth by the man fighting with Ed. It was then that Ed’s dog, Ray, whom Ed had on a leash, bit the man fighting with Ed on the leg. (The second man would later say the dog was only trying to protect Ed.)

The SPCA later seized the dog, and there is the possibility the dog could be put down or re-adopted. The City of Surrey has also informed Ed he must pay a $5,000 fine to get Ray released. Meanwhile, Ray’s fate, and Ed’s ownership, has now become a cause célèbre among animal rights activists. A Facebook website has more than 500 people demanding Ray’s release.

All this has split the community. While the manager of the Chevron station was quoted in an earlier Surrey Now story as calling Ed “a pain in the ass” who has harassed customers and abused his earlier kindnesses like free coffee and sandwiches, and who wants him gone, two employees at the Chevron station, Cynthia Soady and Cindy Oakson, both said they liked Ed and felt he poses no threat.

“I like him,” Oakson said. “But I think being on the street, and fighting for his cause, is really wearing him down. I think a lot of people are against him because he isn’t working (Ed collects welfare), but I don’t think he’s capable of working. I do think we do tend to over-enable him a little bit, but I have a belief system that believes in compassion.”

Oakson said she believed most of the neighbourhood felt the same compassion she does. And Stewart, at Park Fellowship, can attest to evidence of that compassion: many people, he said, have offered their help to Ed, offering him food and supplies. One neighbour even offered his backyard for Ed to sleep in. But Stewart has got plenty of calls, too, he said, from those who want Ed gone, and blame the church for allowing him to stay.

“We’re caught in the middle,” Stewart said. “But we believe, with God’s help, there is a solution here. And if we kick Ed off the property, so what? That doesn’t solve the problem.”

As for Ed, he said all that was important to him was getting Ray back.

“If I get Ray back, I’d leave.”

He didn’t say where, exactly.

pmcmartin@vancouversun.com or 604-605-2905